22 October 2010

Children view their dead classmate

I have featured "postmortem photographs" several times (here, here, here, and here). The one above from 1910 is a bit different in that it features the deceased posed with classmates rather than family.

“Today, children are protected from viewing or actively participating in funerals with the deceased in plain view. In the first decades of the twentieth century, a popular style of postmortem photograph depicted dead school age children with their classmates or social peer groups, such as Boy Scouts. This photograph was made in the real photograph postcard format so that participants could have a copy and perhaps send one to friends.”

From Sleeping Beauty II - Grief, Bereavement and the Family in Memorial Photography by Stanley B. Burns, M.D.

1 comment:

We have really bad attitudes about death. We seem to want to deny its existance. It was probably healthier for people to learn the reality of death so they could accept it as a natural part of the cycle of life.

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I'm using an old photo of my grandfather as an avatar; he would have been amused.
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